D)
Are you a man or woman of solitude? Do
you know how to slow down? -

IF
you desire to be a man or woman of God, you must learn the secret the place of
ISOLATION...

A) The place of getting away with the Lord.

B) The place where there is nothing to
obstruct your view of God.

C) WHERE did Elisha, this mighty prophet
hang out?

1)
In front of the MTV? At the gym? NO!

2)
He was on the mountain with the Lord.

D)
So that is where she finds him { RD v.27-28

Here
we see something that is very important..... Something that Jesus spoke of

Matthew 26:41Watch and pray, lest you
enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak."

Here
we see in this GREAT WOMAN that her flesh is beginning to fail

QUESTION: Can YOU relate to this? I sure can!

A)
One minute you make a great proclamation of faith....

B)
You KNOW that the Lord is going to do something.... You KNOW that it is well

1) But the next minute your faith falters

C)
NOTE: When that happens, know this: You are NOT alone.

Every man and woman of faith in the Bible
had their times when their faith faltered.

A)Here,
this great woman was doing so well,
but now that she is in the presence of Elisha she falters: Didnt I tell you, Dont deceive me?

B)
NOTE: When this happens, RUN to your place of strength - PRAYER

Turn
to Psalm 77

Remember
your works

Remember
your wonders

Meditate
on your works

Talk
on your deeds

Hold
on to what you know is true: Promise given

Back to 2 Kings

RD V.29-37

Several things to glean from this story!

1)
Elisha is a Picture of Jesus

"Of course, there is a profound and beautiful use
to be made of the prophet's action in laying himself upon the dead child, mouth
to mouth, and hand to hand, if we regard it as symbolic of that closeness of
approach to our nature, dead in sins, which the Lord of life makes in His
incarnation and in His continual drawing near." (Maclaren)

When we were dead  Jesus drew near  He inhabited
our world

A)
The word became flesh and dwelt among us

B)
He became death  experienced the fullness of death  So we could experience
the fullness of his life

C)
He was the vessel conveying spiritual life to dead souls.

#2 A Picture of evangelism:

A) Identification

B)
It was PERSONAL CONTACT that made the difference. He touched this child
personally.

C)
He involved himself personally with this lifeless dead body!

1)
He THREW himself wholeheartedly into this situation. He
poured himself out.

D) For our purposes in witnessing you could
say that there was a total identification with this boy

Intensification
of Prayer

2 Kings 4:35

35 He returned and walked back and forth
in the house, and again went up and stretched himself out on him;

We need personal identification and
contact, personal touching of the lives of those who dont know Jesus.

A)
But that must be accompanied by INTENSIFICATION in prayer. Elisha was into it.

James 5:16

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much

B)
NOTE:Many people might want to see
souls saved, but they do NOT see intercession as an
integral part of that work.

D)
These things are badly needed in our lives as we seek to touch those dead in sin

1)
Identification / Intensification in Prayer

#3 Be Patience & Persevere

A)
We then read that the little boy sneezed seven times. Why is that important?

B)
When spiritual life begins to happen, it does NOT always come with a big bang.

1)
Sometimes its just a little sneeze.

C)
APPLICATION: Dont be disappointed if you only hear a sneeze after pouring your
life into reaching a lost soul.

D)
Some of you are witnessing this very thing in the lives of some of your
friends, or family members.

1)
When we hear the sneezes.....We can know that these first signs of reviving.

Most forest fires start with a little spark

A)
Most Revivals the same {little spark  a few gathered to pray.

B)
SO this Great woman with a great need  reveals great faith  experiences a
great miracle

Move on to the poison stewRD V. 38-41

A)Probably
not the smartest move  Elisha says to one of these young guys  go into the
wilderness and gather some stuff for a stew

B)
Young men not good at gathering  eating yes .

1)
They sit down to eat  There is death in the pot!

We could say that today about America!

There is death in the Pot  Something amiss

A)
Judge Alito  Stand on Abortion

B)
Intelligent Design banned from schools

C)
The 10 Commandments like a mirror 

1)
Mirror shows you if you are dirty 

D)
The 10 commandments show us where we are dirty 

1)
1981 our nation said  We dont want to know we are dirty  out of our Schools
/

E)
Out of the court houses

Death
in the Pot!

All
but two of the first 108 universities founded in America were Christian. This
includes the first, Harvard, where the student handbook listed this as Rule #1:
Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider
well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ,
which is eternal life, John 17:3;
and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to
follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

Harvard
today Coed Bathrooms in their dorms

Harvard
published it own Magazine featuring Nude Students  Harvard Playboy

Death in the Pot!

Jesus said in the last days2And because lawlessness will abound, the love
of many will grow cold

A)We
are living in those times  all the Problems that we see in our Country 
forsaken the Law of God.

B) 1980 10 commandments out of
schools - courts

B)Black
white white black  {GRAY!!!!

40 +yrs ago  35 Americans were victims of a violent
crime each hr.

today 200 Americans are victims of violent crime every hr.

40
+yrs ago Violent crime made up 16.1% of the crimes committed in the U.S.

today
40+yrs later violent crime makes up 75.8% of crimes
committed

40
+yrs ago  only 5.3% of the births in America were Illegitimate.

today
40+ yrs later the # is 26.2 % - and that doesnt take into account the
thousands of babies that are aborted every day in the U.S.

America used to lead the world in every Positive
arena / Today we are still a world leader but in a different sense

There
is a FAMINE on the land concerning the hearing of the Word of God.

It
is amazing how few places there are that simply TEACH
the pure Word of God.

There
is a lot of HYPE and Religious Activity but
very few places where the Word is taught and studied systematically.

Programs
and stuff for everything under the son

Church
is a social club ---

All
sorts of winds of doctrines and Christian fads (Laughing in the Spirit, barking
in the Spirit)

What do we do? Follow Elishas example

A)
Took some meal and thru it in the pot

B)
Meal symbolic of the word of God  Get back to the Bible

C)
Our founding fathers believed this

Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of "The
Declaration of Independence"
were orthodox, deeply committed, Christians? Who believed in the Bible?

Immediately
after creating the Declaration of Independence,
the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of
Scripture for the people of this nation.

Noah Webster

The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by
which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social
transactions....

The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to
form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws....

All the miseries and evils which men suffer from, vice, crime,
ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising
or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible....

Samuel Adams

The
rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and
carefully studying the institutes of the Great Law Giver and Head of the
Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written in the New Test.

"I
have lived, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I
see of this truth -- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow
cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it
probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

We
have been assured, in the Sacred Writings that "except the Lord build the
House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I
also believe that without His concurring aid
we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our
projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye
word down to future ages.

I therefore beg leave to move -- that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance
of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly
every morning before we proceed to officiate in that service."

A) Franklins advice  We need to begin everyday
w/ Prayer  Unless the Lord builds the nation we are laboring in Vain

John AdamsEntered into his diary February 22, 1756

"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for
their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the
precepts there contained! Every member would be obliged in conscience to
temperance, frugality and industry: to justice, kindness and charity towards
his fellow men: and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God....What a Utopia,
what a Paradise would this region be."